Performance of [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT in patients with recurrent prostate cancer after prostatectomy—a multi-centre evaluation of 2533 patients

To evaluate the performance of [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT in the diagnosis of recurrent prostate cancer (PC) after prostatectomy in a large multicentre cohort.

The centres, which contributed to this study, were the departments of nuclear medicine of Heidelberg (Germany), Technical University of Munich (Germany) and Albert Einstein Hospital of São Paulo (Brazil). A total of 2533 patients who were scanned with [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT at 1 h p.i. due to recurrent PC after prostatectomy were included in this retrospective analysis. Exclusion criteria were as follows: patients with untreated primary tumour, previous chemotherapy or Xofigo®; those previously treated with exclusively external beam radiation therapy or HIFU; those referred for PSMA-therapy; and those treated with ADT (including first- and second-generation ADT) within the last 6 months. Potential influences of different factors such as PSA level, PSA doubling-time (PSA_DT), PSA velocity (PSA_Vel), Gleason Score (GSC, including the separate analysis of 7a and 7b), age and amount of injected tracer were evaluated in a multivariable analysis.

The rate of pathologic PET/CT-scans was 43% for PSA ≤ 0.2 ng/ml, 58% for PSA > 0.2 to ≤ 0.5, 72% for PSA > 0.5 to ≤ 1.0 and increased to a maximum of 93% for PSA > 10 ng/ml. A pathological PET/CT was significantly (p = 0.001) associated with PSA level and higher GSC. Amount of injected tracer, age, PSA_DT and PSA_Vel were not associated with a higher probability of a pathological scan.

[⁶⁸Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT at 1 h p.i. confirmed its high performance in the largest patient cohort yet analysed. Tumour detection showed a clear association with higher PSA and higher GSC. No association was found between a pathological [⁶⁸Ga]Ga-PSMA-11 PET/CT and age, amount of injected tracer, PSA_DT or PSA_Vel.